The article is a historical note on the progress of child language research at Herzen University. The paper also includes a current review of the main ontolinguistic conferences held by the Chair and Laboratory of Child Language, Herzen University between 1987 and 2018. Special attention is devoted to the conference “Contemporary Ontolinguistics: Problems, Methods, Discoveries” (23-25 June, 2019), and, specifically, to the problem fields presented in the conference reports, and the main methods used by ontolinguists at the contemporary stage of research.